HOLLYWOOD, CA – Former NFL linebacker and current television star Terry Crews has gone public with his struggle against pornography, saying a long-running addiction to the vice led him to cheat on his wife.

"The pornography addiction turns into something else. You can't have something like that in your life without it growing into something else."

“I was addicted to pornography since I was 12 years old,” Crews told daytime talk show host Wendy Williams in a recent interview.

Crews, who is now starring in the Fox TV series Brooklyn Nine-Nine and the new host of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, said the pain of growing up in an abusive and addictive household led him to seek comfort by watching pornographic films in his uncle's basement.

“It medicated me,” he said. But it almost destroyed his two-decades-long marriage to Gospel artist Rebecca King-Crews. They have five children and one grandchild.

"The pornography addiction turns into something else,” Terry said. “You can't have something like that in your life without it growing into something else. Everything grows, whatever you keep in your life.”

His secret addiction went from viewing videotapes at a relative's house to online porn. In time, he convinced himself his addiction was his wife's fault.

He began to see himself as “a victim,” telling himself “I need this," he said. "Then you start blaming her," because his wife would not reproduce the scenarios he had seen on his computer.

"If pornography consumption leads to more positive extramarital sex attitudes as the results of the panels suggest, pornography consumption may be a contributing factor in some divorces via extramarital sex behavior,” the study concluded.